It was a spectacular day in Sebert Woods! Blustery winds brought down all manner of brightly colored leaves (as well as large limbs) and it was marvelously mosquito-free! I was reminded of Margeret Micklethwait’s line: “Sometimes a rough wind surges through the trees, making a sound like wild and stormy seas, and rushing waves…” Photos from the day include Lycopodium obscurum, L. complanatum flabelliforme, L. clavatum, L. tristachyum, and L. lucidulum. Some of these club mosses are now being called by outlandishly different names, and I’ll hop on that bandwagon eventually. In the meantime, if anyone is splitting the Lycopodium obscurum/dendroideum/hickeyi complex, please feel free to comment. What a pleasant autumn day!

Sunday, October 19, 2008

"The odoriferous sassafras, with its delicate green stem, its three-lobed leaf, tempting the travelers to bruise it, it sheds so rare a perfume on him, equal to all the spices of the East. Then its rare-tasting root bark, like nothing else, which I used to dig. The first navigators freighted their ships with it and deemed it worth its weight in gold." Henry David Thoreau, journal entry, August 31, 1850.

Monday, October 6, 2008

Botany Slide Show is scheduled for November 8, 2008. That's just over 1 month away! Please feel free to show up anytime after noon. The slides will likely begin around 5 PM, but we want to have time to discuss botany, conservation, recent publications, specific sites, etc. before we become immersed in slides. Lindsay will be making antelope chili (antelope courtesy of "Shotgun" Thomas). At this point, I have the following people signed up: